Stories, Songs, and Gallant Girls
by Kitty Ryan
Summary: Even before she knew The Doctor properly, River knew him well, and Donna Noble's story had caught in her mind. With bonus Eleven, Jack, Vastra, timey-wimey madness, and thesis ephemera. River Song rights a wrong.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 **

"_The Ood have been more prominent in studies of ethics or politics than music or legend. They do, after all, show us a reflection of ourselves (Sawyer, 2745: 23). But to anyone interested in post-Gallifreyan, the Ood—and our treatment of them—do not just show us our own past, but also a faint, yet enduring, tale of The Doctor himself. The Doctor, and perhaps his strongest and strangest Earth Companion._

Song, R., 5130. Boxed-Up: A Collection of Timelord Ephemera. Thesis. (PhD) Luna University.

* * *

><p>River stood on the central planet of the Ood-Sphere, snow up to her ankles and music skittering up from glaciers to prick her skin, and tried to picture The Doctor's face. Not his current face—not that strange, daft mix of old and young and silly hats that had slipped behind even her infant eyes. Not the face she had last seen from a hospital bed, shadowed as her whole body ached from the gift she had not known she would give. Not the face she had killed and kissed. No, instead she strained for the face that had been added to snowside stories and Oodsong, shared—or so she had read—over telepathic link across entire planets.<p>

The DoctorDonna.

* * *

><p>It didn't start with the divorce. It started at the pub.<p>

Donna's friend Cheryl was mad for detective novels. Not the proper stuff—nothing like Agatha Christie—but the sort who sat in dark bars and glowered while the supernatural happened all around them. They were, to the man, brooding, long-streak-of-nothing blokes; they looked pretty interesting for five minutes, but get so wrapped up in their personal crises that they couldn't see the criminal for the Cthulu.

Chiswick was not anyone's Chicago or New York. Going down the pub had to stand in for a brooding bar, with Earl playing darts up one end, but Donna sometimes thought of Cheryl and her daft spook-books, when she found herself sketching stick figures out of beer dregs on a table top for the sixth night in seven, trying to sort out all the pictures in her dreams. "Distracted," Mum called it.

("You won the _lottery_, even with all the…mess." Sylvia's voice cut through three miles and the fumes of a thousand pints, careful vowels sharp in her mind. "Be _happier_. That's how it _works_."

"There isn't exactly an off-switch, you know."

"Or an on-switch."

"Oi!"

Sylvia had sighed, hand reaching out and then fluttering back, manicured nails curling back into awkward palms. "_Donna_," she said. "You need to—"

"—if you say _move on_, I'll—"

"—you'll what, my girl?" Sylvia shook her head, as if Donna had handed her another school paper with, 'Mediocre: See Me' written out in careful, green pen. "Be obstreperous?"

"I never should have given you that word of the day calendar."

Sylvia just had an eyeroll for that. "_Forget _him, Donna" she'd said, and swallowed something soft in the next words. "You're good at forgetting things.")

Sitting at her booth, head pounding, Donna wished she could explain that she _had_ forgotten about Shaun, at least as much as anyone could be expected to forget about a git who talked about "growing apart" the way other people talked about shopping lists. It had been easy, actually. Easy enough to worry her, because Donna was sure that once she would have fought; she would have fought, and screamed, and even if she hadn't been able to keep, she might have _learnt_, and Shaun would have more of her mark on him than a black eye.

There was something in her head. Something smothering, and blank, and thick where thoughts might be, and made her feel more like Cheryl's ridiculous, paranoid not-so-good detectives than she'd ever wanted. The night before, she'd seriously dreamt of giant bees. Wasps? _Things_. And her dream-self had thought it was beautiful—thought it was _important_—while the rest of her screamed for flypaper. The headache that morning? Worse than a hangover.

"Okay." She stood, knees popping, and let herself drift to the bar. "I'm thinking about bees. Time for another drink."

"Make it a whiskey."

The voice was light, but as richly warm and worn smooth as the wood panelling on the old pub's walls. A small, strong hand came down to tap at a coaster, and Donna blinked as Ed—worked here five years; a year younger than her in school; played a tree once in the local play because his mum had begged him, and was usually only half awake as he poured pints—blushed all over his rather unfortunate face and reached up for spirits.

Donna looked over her shoulder, following the hand up a bare, tanned arm to take a woman who might have looked at a hair-straightener once, only to point and laugh. Green eyes narrowed in turn, and Donna felt the muscles on her face tighten as she watched the woman's lips curve up in a half smile.

"Oh, yes," she said, winking at Donna. "One for me, too." The two glasses slipped in before them, faint trails shining on the sides from Ed's shaking hands.

Donna glared. She had to glare _up_, because the woman was wearing louboutins as if they were tennis shoes, and the hair added at least a school-ruler's length in height.

"Oi, you," she managed. "Who says I drink that muck?"

"Who says you don't _want_ to? Rule 32. If you're going to have a drink, it should _always _be a good one. Especially when you need it." Donna watched as one glass was raised in a salute. "I'm River Song."

Donna felt a laugh rise, raucous and bright, from her throat. "You're _mad_, that's what you are."

"Aren't we all, dear?"

"Mad," said Donna. "And… raised by hippies?"

River Song laughed at that, soft and yet strangely wild, as leather gleamed in the belt at her waist; the shoes; the bag slung over one sleek shoulder.

Donna shook her head. She felt the thickness inside her rise and grow, and she struggled to keep her curiosity bright and hot inside her mind. "Bad ones? Look, do I _know you_?"

She hissed surprise as River's hand fell warmly about her own, pressing it around the remaining glass. "You might." River shrugged. "Some other time."

* * *

><p>Wonderful things, surprises. The Doctor had always thought them served on Wednesdays, or as a distraction from Sunday afternoons, but even a Tuesday might be miraculous, if it started with River Song, a carpet, and a planet run on dirty limericks.<p>

The problem was, of course, that sometimes surprises didn't know when to _stop._

"_Body in the Library?"_

The book landed with a small thud on the Tardis console, white fold-scars running across its cover, its pages brittle and curling up towards him, echoing older hands. It was battered. It had been loved. His breath ground down against his throat.

"How did you find that, River?"

River Song shrugged, leaning around his stiff, tweed-covered body to squint at the paperback. Her hair tickled his cheek, and it was both light and terribly _dense_, somehow; the air between them thick with the fresh-washed smell of it, overlaying her skin and the particular crispness the old girl could lend to the clothes she kept for them all.

"Bathtime reading, sweetie," she murmured, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. The gesture, her warmth at his back, all felt so deliciously, delicately comfortable that he was tempted to turn around and make her forget the book, forget anything that didn't involve their brief days of synchronicity. His hand found her hair, sliding up under the weight of it to cup the base of her skull, and River purred, low in her throat.

"It was right there," she said. "Waiting."

The Doctor sighed, catching bright, superfine threads of curiosity in her voice.

"Waiting. Lots of things are _waiting_, River. That doesn't mean you have to—"

"—Go poke it with a stick?" River snorted, and he did not need to turn to know how she smirked, both eyebrows raised. "Oh, my love. Be _careful_. I'll point and laugh."

"If we start pointing out each other's constant inconsistencies, River, we'll be here all day. Twice." The Doctor picked up the slim book, fanning the pages with the edge of his thumb, so they rustled and flapped together. "Why are you interested in Agatha Christie, of all people? Not that she isn't charming, of course. _Lovely _woman—has pluck in spades. I _think _pluck is the word, isn't it? Dashing, smart people from the early twentieth century have pluck—or is that pheasants?"

"I think," River managed, words only a little strangled, "They _wore _pheasants, sometimes."

"Yes, of course. And that's just _confusing_. Agatha Christie wasn't confusing, she was gallant." The Doctor turned, dropping a kiss to the tip of her nose. "Love a gallant girl, me."

"Oh?"

"Always." His face twisted as River gently tugged the book from his hands. Empty, they twisted together, knuckles creaking. "Donna was splendid, too." he said.

"_Oh_." River's tone had softened, but her eyes were bright on his face. Bright, clear and scholar-sharp, while he followed a faint flush as it flared along her cheekbones. "This was _Donna's_? Donna Noble?"

_This woman_, said the familiar thought, _has tried to read everything about you_. _And written some of it._

"Yes," he said. "Old girl must have kept it. You know she does that, sometimes. The whole business of Jack's Squareness Gun ending up in your Byz—"

"—_spoilers_, Doctor." River laughed, one hand reaching up to cup his face. "If you're dripping information, then you _must _be trying to distract me. And if I _know _you're trying to distract me, it's only going to be rubbish."

"She was my best friend," he said.

"Then, sweetie, I bloody well hope I get to meet her."

* * *

><p>"No way,"<p>

River smiled. "Oh, yes."

"No _way_."

"Several ways. That _was _their redeeming feature."

Donna wasn't sure how she and the stranger had gotten talking about Nestene Duplicates. She did not, after all, even know what a Nestene Duplicate _was_, but River's knowing voice—something in her presence—seemed catching. Sitting with River Song, their legs tangling slightly the scarred pub tabletop, River's shoes kicked away and her instep warm and not entirely unwelcome against Donna's calf, made her feel bright and brilliant about all her edges. And she felt entirely educated in the benefits of swappable heads.

"You're insane." Donna grinned. "Complete nutter. You do realise that, don't you?"

River shrugged. "People _do _keep reminding me. But you seem to be enjoying it."

"I—the _stories _you tell." Donna shivered, pushing her hair back out of her eyes, letting her palms press there. "I feel like my head's going to explode."

"That," River muttered, "Is because it is."

"River, you can't!"

River let her hand rest against the Tardis's outside wall, watching rich blue show through the gaps in her fingers as The Doctor paced and glared. Stormcage's barred shadows striped their faces. "And who says I haven't?"

"You _haven't_. It's not possible. It's so _impossible _that—"

"—I love a challenge."

"I am _not challenging you_."

"Oh yes, my love. You are."

* * *

><p>They both staggered as they left, though Donna was sure River must be putting it on. Her arm was tight about Donna's waist, fingers toying with the silky purple material of her shirt. Just a Top Shop thing—not a favourite, until now. Now, anything could happen—and that might be the whiskey; the stories; the new tightness in her stomach mixing with the endless thrumming in her head—but whatever it was, it was <em>glorious<em>.

"I'd forgotten," she said. The night was cool around her, though she was sure that air must be boiling off her skin like water hitting a hot stove. Something was crackling over her, and River's hair was blown all about the place in the slight wind, whole swathes of it blowing across the other woman's face.

"Forgotten what, Donna?"

"What it _felt like_. Not being a temp." She shrugged. "Not that this isn't just some sort of really _weird _dream, or something like that, but I know there was this—this—"

"—This what, darling?"

Darling? Must be a dream. All of it. Donna pictured herself back in the pub, slumped over her usual table with her hair sprawled all about the bloody place and a small puddle of spit growing beneath her mouth until Ed finally felt brave enough to wake her. She shuddered. She'd take the dream. River's voice was soft, her lips pressing for a bare second against Donna's jaw.

"This _time," _she said. "I don't know. Mum says it's just because I'm trying to make my life into something it's not, what with Shaun and all the psychology programs on telly, but there was one time _before _all of this, and it was perfect. Or it would be, if I could remember it. All I get is…headaches. And dreams about great-giant-bloody wasps. Or libraries with dead people's donated faces on them. And that doesn't sound perfect—it sounds _mad_. But it was."

"Fleshbanks really are common, you know," River murmured, bringing one hand slowly up along Donna's back to tangle in the long, smooth mass of hair, almost black in the night, though streetlights brought out flashes of bloodier hues. "Giving a face is…like putting a plaque on a park bench."

Donna shuddered. "I've heard that before. Why have I heard that before?"

"Maybe someone told you?"

"Who _would?_"

River smiled, wistful and sweet. "We both know the type."

"I don't know anything about you."

River laughed, head falling back. "Oh, you know quite a bit, actually. I don't tell that Silurian story to just anyone, Donna Noble. But there are songs about you, so I thought: _if I'm going to tell anyone, it just has to be you_."

Donna flinched, skin stretched tight. "I do _not _know who you are," she said. "And I don't know why I want to invite you home."

River smirked, shadows dancing over her face under the streetlights, traffic rumbling at her back. "That second part's easy. As for the first…"

Donna gasped as River brought two hands to her face. Donna felt the edges of River's palms against her cheeks; fingers light against her temples. River's eyes were wide, and she seemed to stiffen where she stood, the tips of her nails pricking Donna's skin and that wicked, full mouth tightening in anger.

"Oh," River breathed. "_Cowboys_ in your head." Her own head shook: a sharp, tight motion. "I _hate _him sometimes. Donna, I want to help you."

"By tearing off my head? Because that's what this is starting to—"

"—I _can _help you. He was wrong." River grinned, quick and fierce. "So _very _wrong, though if he did this when he didn't even know a thing about me, then I suppose it makes sense, if anything makes sense once you've persuaded yourself that you are a Lonely God and you're dealing with a metacrisis. That daft, dear, _stupid _man."

Donna was crying. She felt it; felt the heaviness in her throat and nose; the tears on her cheeks, even when it was impossible to blink away from River's tumbled, impossible speech. Her head was burning. Her skin; the muscles laid tight and pulsing over her skull and down her neck; she _burned, _all while River's voice seemed to come from somewhere increasingly far away.

"Oh, no you _don't_."

River's lips were against hers, urgent and ardent; sweet and sharp. Donna's mouth gaped a little, but all the other woman did with _that _little piece of human awkwardness was something disgustingly clever with her tongue.

And something broke. River cried out into her mouth, biting her own lips and Donna's as the burning sensation twisted up and out and _around_ the two of them, golden light, with images flecked through it, like dust in sunbeams.

The dust in sunbeams. Stone bodies beneath the earth, and her hand on the lever that broke Pompeii. Unicorn-wasp-_Agatha Christie_-planetfall-planetlost-shadows-faces-_faces_-his-face-his-hand-his-world-and-_theirs_-and-and-and—

"—_Oi. _Spaceman."

Donna blinked. "He just went and _did_ it." Donna shuddered, barely noticing as blood pooled in her bottom lip. "He just—that mangy, skinny little—all of _that_, he took from me?"

River's smile was crooked, though she could not dim the triumphant gleam in her eyes, heightened by a new, shifting glow. "And I just went and put it all back. We're both dreadfully interfering, you know."

"Oh," Donna breathed. She could feel her mind turning. Expanding. Felt thoughts leaping through new channels, playful and familiar and as wonderful as time with her grandfather under an open-starred sky. "I know," she said. "Wait. I _know. _I _really _know, and I'm not dead, which means something must have—"

"—re-absorbed the Time Energy left over from the metacrisis. And taken down his memory block, of course." River scowled. "_With _those unnecessarily troublesome self-defence mechanisms. They nearly had my teeth out."

"But _that _means—"

"—yes, I could take the power without melting bits of my insides. Very useful." River kissed Donna's cheek.

"He said _no one _could withstand the—the Vortex." Donna shuddered, stepping back to look again at the smiling woman, more familiar now than ever. "And I knew that. I was…he had my head and I _knew _that."

"And the Doctor lies, darling. Especially to himself." River laughed. "Mostly, though, he just happened to be _wrong_. No one could absorb the life of a Timelord. Except me."

"And who are _you _when you're at home—oh." Donna swallowed, re-drawing River's face into something younger and strained, watching her friends fall and a man's face drain of all recognition and warmth. "I _know_ you. I s—"

River's hand fell gently over her mouth. "_Spoilers_," she said. "I know what that look means by now. On you, as well as him."

Donna pulled her head back, staring up at the other woman. "I remember it all, now," she said, slowly tasting the words while the other woman reached for her hands, squeezing.

"The DoctorDonna." River nodded. "Hello."


	2. Chapter 2

They made it to a park bench, River's arm about her waist and the pair of them laughing like madwomen after midnight. "Going home feels like it's for other bloody people," she gasped, shivering a little as dark, cool, green-scented air settled over her skin and River's hand slipped around hers. She squeezed, unthinking. "Gramps'll worry even if mum doesn't, but—"

"I know." River smiled, flexing her shoulders slightly.

Donna found herself staring at the pattern dim streetlight glow and leaves made of her skin. "It's just, I _would_, and all, but—"

"I _know_."

Saying her head felt crowded, Donna knew, was wrong. That was like saying Bahamas were a little bit warm. But home was Sylvia waiting up with tea and repeats of The Archers. It was Gramps, the sadness in his eyes all suddenly, appallingly clear, and it was her old bedroom full of half-unpacked boxes. It was impossible.

"They knew." Donna let her eyes squeeze closed. "They both did, and didn't say a word."

River's smile was swift and sympathetic, but she also shrugged. "Sometimes, silence is the only safety. And they'd hate to lose you."

"But they _did_ lose me." Ebullience had drained away as they sat, and Donna shifted against the wooden bench, its slats hard and slightly damp against her back, splinters catching her shirt. "I lost me. _This _me. I'm not sharing my head with Time any more, but I can still count pi down about 100 flipping digits. The Donna who woke up this morning would hear you talking about pi and ask if it came with chips!"

"It really should."

Donna snorted, squeezing River's hand again. "The Doctor," she said, slowly enough to let the word sit a while in her mouth. Slow enough to measure the name. "He…he knows you, now?"

River stiffened. "Of course he knows me. Whyever—?"

The woman's words seemed to fade in Donna's head, as she remembered the frantic, strained look that had been in River's eyes when they had first met in The Library. It had not lasted long: seconds, perhaps, before she had shielded it and goaded them all on, teasing The Doctor in a voice close to the one River had now, if much wearier. This River, the whose body warmed Donna's whole side and who was staring at her as if she were a Roman fruit-seller and Donna had started speaking Welsh, seemed too full of vitality to ever be reduced to a handful of saved bytes.

_"And then, you remembered_," Donna thought, flushing. _Wonky timelines._

"—Why'd you do it?" Donna asked, watching River's face clear in the speckled light.

"Do what, darling?"

Donna's free hand darted up, two fingers touching her own lips. "You _know _what."

"Oh, yes." River winked. "But I want to hear you say it."

"Kiss m—_save_ m—" Donna shook her head, hard. "Swallow all that time and give most of it back?"

"_That's _vivid. Not quite accurate, but evocative all the same. " River released her hand. "But the answer's quite simple, Donna Noble. I did it because I could."

"You know," Donna mused. "You should be careful. Psychopaths say that sort of thing all the time—what's so funny?"

River only let her head fall to Donna's shoulder, both arms going about her waist, meeting and fumbling with something until light flared up and swallowed them both, laughter and all.

* * *

><p>Something had yanked on Donna's stomach until it wrapped around her tonsils, and it was <em>cold<em>.

Ice cold. She blinked. _Snow _cold.

"I'll ask about _how _in a minute," she gasped, teeth chattering as she shut her eyes against a new sort of blinding white light. "But right now, what I want to know is: _why _do neither of you give anyone time to _get dressed for weather_."

River laughed, Donna hearing the rustle of fabric beneath it and the grumbling winds. "Vortex manipulator," she said. "Never leave home without one. And here." She draped a jacket about Donna's shoulders. It was slightly too small. It was body-warm and wool-lined. "We'll only be here a minute."

Donna huddled into the borrowed warmth, eyes slitting open. She saw a world of sleet and spires; space twisted in new ways as ice skittered across the landscape. Small crystals were already forming in the finer, paler curls about River's face. The archaeologist was grinning. And Donna knew, seeing it all, that she had been here before.

"This is that Ood-Sphere, isn't it?"

"One of my first placements at university." River nodded. "I begged and begged for it, you see, even though what I could find here was more in the air than under the ground."

"What, _snow?_"

"Oral history." River spread her hands. "The very air of this place is thick with stories. Stories about him, stories about you. _Stories_. I found them at a very important part of my life."

Donna never thought she'd say that a vision of Six Sigma's face rising up in her mind was a beautiful thing, but, looking out over the snow with her memories still unfurling like so-many leaves, she didn't bother trying to find another word. "'DoctorDonna. Friends," she murmured.

"Exactly."

"The Ood said they'd sing about us. I remember that. And the Doctor looked so _sad—_"

"Their song meant a particular thing for him," River said softly, wistfully. "They saw even more than how wonderful you would be, saving the universe. But it meant a particular thing to _me_, too, when I heard it."

"Songs do it," Donna said, smiling. "My friend Cheryl? She can't listen to _Kiss from a Rose_ without tearing up, no mind that it's the most pathetic song that side of _The Macarena_."

Donna jumped as River lightly slapped her arm. "Important song, _The Macarena_," she said. "Don't knock it. But yes. I heard about the Oodsong when I was still an undergraduate, studying the Doctor, and—"

"—wait. _Wait_. You _studied_ the—"

"—oh, yes. Never mind that."

"There's a _degree_?"

River smiled, shaking her head. "DoctorDonna. Friends," she said, soft and sure. \

"Those words echo across the universe. Every universe. I would very much like to be friends, Donna Noble."

Donna swallowed, touching her lips again with fingers going an interesting shade of blue. "What? Like-uh—because I've never really—and I'm not—" _I'm babbling. That's what I'm bloody doing._

The other woman's smile only deepened, eyes sparkling as creases lifted at the corners of her eyes. "As whatever you shall take. Hush."

Donna flushed, losing any trace of the weather across her skin. "And what about him?"

River cocked her head, smirking. "Who?"

Donna made a face. "Pretty boy."

"Who would _ever _call him that?"  
>Donna blinked, shrugging attempted diffidence. "But aren't you going to go and…find him, or something?"<p>

"And leave you here, after all of this? Not a chance." River's smile faded, eyes serious. "Unless you want that, of course. But I was thinking that you should _really _come with me."

Looking up at River, catching something earnest beneath all her secrets and her teasing, Donna felt herself start to grin. She'd thought only one man could look nostalgic for a whole world of things that hadn't happened yet. "Where?"

"Oh," River breathed. "You've done this before. You know the answer to that."

"Yeah," Donna said, reaching out and placing her hand on the other woman's wrist, over the square, black bulk of the Vortex manipulator. "But maybe I want to hear _you _say it."

"_Anywhere_."


	3. Chapter 3

_London: 1814_

They dressed in a Thames warehouse; the boards of the place rich with earth and river-muck, ale, and smoke. Donna let rust coloured skirts run through her fingers, threads catching at her palms. "The Doctor never actually dressed up," she observed.

"He only watched the rest of us do it."

"And he missed out on half the fun." River straightened a pillbox hat, hands fast and sure with pins and navy velvet. "How do I look?"

Donna looked up from her own dark, tight leather boots and squinted, head tilted. "Not ridiculous," she said. "Don't know how, since the vortex manipulator should make you a walking anachronism. And the hat should make you a walking pillock. Instead, it's—"

"—Fetching."

Donna jumped. She wished, not for the first time, that a greater awareness of temporal mystery and all that business had left her less likely to let new people and places sneak up on her un-bloody-noticed. River seemed perfectly at ease, smiling a welcome at the tall, frock-coated Silurian—yeah, _definitely_ Silurian; definitely female; definitely wearing a cravat—but a part of Donna, despite everything, was still stuck on: _green. She's __**green.**__ Can't you see that?_

The part of her that felt like the Doctor said—and snippily, too—that propensity for surprise was part of her charm. But the part of her that was the Doctor also couldn't stop staring at River's breasts. That was new, and had to be his fault—probably not the best idea to listen. At least not all the time.

"Hello, Aunty Vastra." River's smile had grown to show teeth; her stance solid and, all of a sudden, coiled in a new sort of readiness. "I was wondering if you'd notice."

"You weren't even quiet as an infant, child." The Silurian's light drawl scraped gently across Donna's skin, and she watched curiously as River seemed to flush a little under it, nostrils flared. "Stands to reason that you'd worsen with age. And you need to be careful. You barely missed your birthday."

River's eyes closed. "You really know how to talk to a girl, don't you?"

Vastra sighed, her own sharp grin never fading. "Jenny informs me of it daily. Now. If we're going to be all pretty human courtesy, introduce me to your companion?

Donna rolled her eyes. "The _companion_ can introduce herself," she said, holding out a not-quite-gloved hand. "Donna Noble."

The Silurian hissed. No other word for it, her breath rattling about her throat, lips parted and eyes wide and blue. _The green_ really _sets them off._ Having her hand about Donna's wrist was like being very soundly gripped by an alligator purse.

"I know the name," Vastra said. "There are—"

"—Songs. Stories. Yeah. I know."

Vastra laughed, head thrown back. "But _that_ means—"

"—Yes," said River. "It does."

"While I was sure—"

"—_Yes_," said River. "So was he."

"And so _you_—with your—you concluded that, since you had the unique...circumstances—"

"Oi." Donna angled herself between the two women, glaring. "You are getting _so smug_ about that." River's hand fell to her shoulder, sliding up under her half pinned hair while the Silurian watched, something amused about her thin-lipped mouth, and Donna's breath caught behind the glare.

"Yes," said River. "I am."

Vastra clapped her hands together, breaking the new tension in the air. "And insufferable," she declared. "Come. We can be civilised away from this place."

* * *

><p>Civilisation, as it turned out, involved brandy balloons. It also involved a freshly introduced Jenny—<em>their<em> Jenny? No. But the sparkling-sharp pressure of memories, and a little flush of hope, made Donna ache. She was bent at a terracotta hearth, toasting fork in hand, all soft smiles and shy-sly glances.

"It's lovely to meet you, miss. River never brings anyone nice." Jenny pushed dark hair back behind her ears with a crumbed hand, voice slipping away somewhere soft and distant. "And River always has the mistress all het-up."

"Er…"

Jenny laughed. "Don't mind me. Incorrigible."

Donna watched as Jenny shifted to her feet, balancing the plate of toast on one forearm. "You seem really happy."

"Why wouldn't I be, miss? When something fits, it—"

"—I know. Actually, I don't. Or I did." Donna leant down and stole a piece of toast, her smile crooked. "I'm remembering. How did you meet Vastra, anyway?"

The woman blushed, smoothing her pinafore with her free hand. "There was a confrontation, miss," she murmured. "Tobymen. Three in all. She said that she could feel me, from the pipes."

"The _sewer_ pipes?"

"She likes to be beneath the earth!"

"Go on, then. She just…popped up and rescued you?"

Jenny smiled, slow and very sweet. "Oh, no, miss. She didn't need to do that. There was only one left, and I'd just gone to break his nose."

Something hit Donna in the back of the head. "_Excuse_ me—"

"—Gossip is best when brief, Donna Noble." Vastra was already striding into the hall as Donna turned to face the pile of cotton, silk, and canvas pooling at her feet—everything from a greatcoat to socks. Jenny was on her knees again, tsking over the pile.

"_Obviously_," Donna muttered, "You've never worked in an office."

"River wants you out with us tonight," said the Silurian, deaf or wilful, her voice fading. "You need something fit for the weather. And running. You shall find boots by the door."

"Right green queen, she is. " Donna shook her head, wondering, but bent to pick up a lawn undershirt. "That all makes you happy?"

"Unspeakably." Jenny smiled, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "Come on. I have to fetch the swords. And if you don't change you'll be fearful cold."

"It is _always_ cold, you know." Donna groaned. "I'll let deep space off, I suppose, but the rest of it? Besides one volcano and one really mad garden party, it has been dark, and dreary, and cold."

"It's London, miss." A small, delicate shrug. "And Madam Vastra says no sane traveller of time would enter a city in summer post industrial revolution. Jenny squinted into the pause she had made. "The mistress does say the oddest things."

* * *

><p>Jenny, with a sword, was not a different person. That was the thrill of it. Seeing strength and speed in a body that had ever been honed toward practical things. Jenny, sword in hand, bandoleer across her chest, steady in grime-tracked snow and slush, was perfect. She was as perfect in caps and skirts and polishing clothes. Perfect tucked up on a sofa, Vastra's arm about her waist. Humans spoke of love in these terms, but Vastra saw no humanity in her at this moment—in any of their moments. She simply saw the strengths, the sweetness; the silences and sinews beneath different skin.<p>

She saw the others watching: River, so aged, here, and so deeply proud; her Donna, who sparked and crackled with words and worlds Vastra could almost taste. She had taken River's hand, eyes wide as Jenny dispatched a padfoot with economy.

"I taught her that one," River said, smirking.

"No—you—_did not_." Vastra could have laughed as Jenny rounded on the two women, man groaning at her feet. "You're next to useless without your filthy guns."

"_Hardly_."

Vastra tensed, watching the lamplight flicker across River's suddenly unreadable features. She watched the woman's throat, waiting for a pulse that might leap in warning before an attack. Unique and precious she might be; a great improvement on her infant self—all that life condensed into a few short months in the Silurian's year. But if River Song thought to hurt Jenny, the Doctor might do as he liked. She would still be dead.

But Jenny only smiled. "You're a terrible show-off, you know. I think Donna's mightily impressed already."

_Oh, wicked girl!_

"She isn't trying to—I do not _need_ to be—"

"—I am not trying to do anything of the—"

"—River doesn't need to try and impress anyone, Jen. She just _does_."

"—Oh."

"What are we nattering about here for, anyway?" Donna had stepped forward, back to River but between her friend and the old, curved sword. "Criminals! Stupidly dangerous chases! Allons-y!" She shuddered, her whole body tense with a gag. "Did I just say that? I cannot _believe_ I just said that."

"Next time, dear heart," River murmured. "I shall take you somewhere _warm_."

Vastra watched a great deal of blushing, as London's underground fell about their feet.

* * *

><p><em>᾿ΑΟΪΔΕ ΝΚ: 6739<em>

Steam coiled about the cavern; soft and sweet-scented and weirdly sentient, the way it brushed her skin at one sigh and pulled free, all nice and delicate, if Donna so much as shook her head. She didn't ask. Sometimes, it was best to just lay back and _enjoy_ being in the warm, pink and lavender waters of New Cyprus. Mist with free will would ruin the atmosphere.

Donna smiled, cupping her hands in the water and letting it fall from her hands in a sheet, breaking into crystalline fragments before it was swallowed back inside itself, rippling over her legs and belly.

"Having fun?"

River hunkered down on the pool's edge, letting her fingertips break the water. Donna smiled.

"You took me to a _spa planet_." Donna stretched, shivering as water trickled between her breasts, letting her eyes close before River could catch her gaze. "How much did you _see_ inside my head?"

"Enough." Donna couldn't be sure, but she might have felt something hoarse in River's voice. "I saw that man never _did_ learn how to take a proper holiday."

Donna snorted. "Even you can't teach him? Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Oi, spacelady." Eyes open, grinning, Donna swept her arms forward, splashing River's head and chest. "No mocking, you."

"I wasn't," River spluttered. She stared down at the growing, dark stain across her shirt, curls dripping, shaking her head slowly. "Madthing."

"Ha. Says _you_."

River shrugged, hands working at buttons. "I say a lot of things, darling."

"Well, say them in here, then." Donna never took her eyes from River's hands, her head tilted slightly, red hair stained dark and starting to curl. "You're wet enough."

"That's the plan."

Donna laughed. "Can't believe I bloody said that," she muttered."_He_ was always into daft language puns. You're just—"

"—as bad?"

"Filthier."

"Ah, come now. I can be _so much_ worse."

"Do I want to know?"

"I know you've spoken about linguists and I've never once said the word, 'Cunning.'

"Oh, no, don't you—"

"—Not until you beg me, darling."

* * *

><p><em>Everywhere: While you weren't watching.<em>

Travelling without a TARDIS was fast and slippery, even after Donna got used to the lurching feeling in her stomach and the tightness of her chest. After weeks with River—weeks that could fold out into months and back into seconds with one dizzying blink—Donna was sure her heart had simply grown used to a new pace. Her blood thrummed. She learnt quick costume changes and quicker lies, and the first time River leant her the hallucinogenic lipstick to deal with one particularly fit looking Stormcage guard—("They don't like home visits, darling. No matter how nice I am.")—she felt like a new woman.

Of course, since she'd been laughing like some mad thing at the time, watching the guard think the air was all gone to flying fish, and had licked her lips before she could think about it or River could stop her, she really _did_ feel quite new. Quite divine.

("Oh, look! I'm Aphrodite! Who bloody knew?"

"You are...quite something," River had said. Only it wasn't River, anymore. No, it was someone else. Someone with glistening, bright, tangled hair and a face bright enough to burn. Someone who—"

"—_Medusa!_"

A sigh from the vision. "It's the hair, isn't it? Typical. Still, could be worse, I suppose..."

River had kissed her, then. Drew Donna's lower lip into her mouth and sucked, groaning as the small poison shifted and spilled through her own body; until she, too, heard the sound of snakes, and smelt the sea-salt and sex that rose from Aphrodite's skin, all mixed in with cotton and lemon oil.)

The 51st Century was a whirl, River showing off her alma-mater while her younger self toiled in a hall somewhere with one, final exam. ("I'd always wished I could be somewhere else for Research Methods," she'd told Donna, winking. "Now I know that I am.")

* * *

><p>The biggest shock, for all of the world's Lunas (Lunae?) and Ios and burning galaxies, might have been in 1920s Berlin.<p>

River was moody, all half-hints and scowls as she let her hands drag through her hair, leaving Donna to wander streets tiled in vivid Weimar green under gaslight, while music and smoke coiled around her body. _River should love this place,_ Donna thought. ,emNoisy. Unstable. Full of really_ rude postcards._

"No, it's _not_. That's impossible."

Donna's musing stilled as she caught the voice, soft but unmistakable underneath bawdy show tunes. Donna smiled.

"Aren't you meant to be the impossible one?"

Captain Jack Harkness's coat was lighter, the shadows on his face darker, but in all other ways he was just the same. And he was staring at her like he'd seen a miracle.

"You _remember_ me?"

Donna sighed, stance shifting, hands square on her hips. "You're much prettier when you start with, "'Hello.'"

"You're...you do. _Donna Noble._" The grin that cracked his face wasn't quite right. But it was still knee-weakening material. "You're _alive_."

_Yes. Boy. Yes, I am._ "Metacrisis averted. Brain decidedly un-burnt. You could kiss me to celebrate?"

He laughed, and it sounded like the first time he'd tried that for a millennia.

* * *

><p>"Why so gloomy?"<p>

Pubs in the Weimar Republic weren't all that much different from pubs on the High Street, although Donna suspected this was because she had her own private perception filter designed to turn any room that served beer into familiar, wood-panelled comfort. Whatever the room actually looked like, Jack looked stupidly good in it, his hands loosely clasped about a large glass.

"It's a long story," he said.

"So's mine."

Jack grinned. "That, I'd guessed. It wasn't...Donna. It couldn't have been—"

"—no. Afraid I haven't seen his gormless face."

"It's not gormless!"

"Oh, come on, soldierboy," she said. "It is a _little_ bit gormless, with the eyes and the glasses and, well, with the _face_. Jack. Good face. Just gormless. And I haven't seen it."

Jack sighed. "Neither have I. Not for a _long_ time."

"But you have your friends, yeah?" Donna tried for bracing, watching Jack's own face turn dark and still. "Honestly. Is 1921 the Year of Depressing Time Travellers? Must be. That Gwen, and the dapper fella you were making eyes at. Ian—"

"—Ianto." Jack's eyes closed. "His name was Ianto."

"Oh." Donna swallowed. "Oh, Jack, I didn't know. Which makes sense, because until about last week I didn't know anything anymore, but it's—"

"—it's nothing," Jack lied.

_Don't say it, Donna. Don't you dare say it... ._ "You loved him."

_Well done, spacegirl._

"It would never have worked." Jack's smile was ghastly." A point that's rather been proven. But who is the other depressed time traveller, Donna? How are you here?"

Donna shrugged. "Got lucky," she said, wincing as Jack began to smirk, mysterious past trauma or no mysterious past trauma.

"Got lucky? Or _got lucky?_"

"Oi!"

"Look, darling," he said. "With that word choice and _that_ blush? Can't resist."

"I don't _do_ that," Donna snapped, ignoring curious glances from suited bystanders.

Jack was chuckling. "With the way you just kissed me? I do not believe you."

Donna let her head fall into her hands, thumping the table. "Not with women."

She felt his hand pet her hair. "Now, Donna. That's just stupid."

"You _would_ think so."

"You're right," said Jack. "I do!"

"Yeah?" Donna raised her head, belligerent as her hair fell into her flushed face. "But I'm _not_ just Donna, now. I'm DoctorDonna, remember? And the Doctor loved this particular bloody woman more than he ever knew, and now all of that is _in my head_, isn't it? And so anything _I_ feel gets all tangled up in—in—"

"—We are all tangled, darling." River's voice was soft, but Donna heard it, going still as the other woman's shadow fell across the table. Jack, she noticed dimly, had gone white. And saluted.

"I think," said River Song, "That we need to go home."

* * *

><p>When River said home, she <em>meant<em> it. Donna gasped as the slats from their old park bench pressed into her back ag ain, a faint London drizzle dampening her cheeks and collecting in bright drops amongst River's curls. "What…?"

River smiled, crooked and a little wistful. "Rule 12. If you can, always give companions somewhere _safe_ to run." A pause. "Not an easy one to enforce, by all accounts."

"_Excuse_ me?" Donna whispered, one new-old memory rising up to cloud the rest. A sharp, tight, too-little-blood-for-too-much-skin nightmare of a feeling, with the Doctor's hands on her face as she shied and struggled and pleaded for anything that was not safe. River's hands were still, but her eyes were fixed on Donna's face, overbright and lined under the streetlight.

"Just in case," she said. "I'm not going to _make_ you do anything, Donna, but—"

"—don't you _dare_." Donna did not know when she had stood up, but she was standing now; shaking a little, legs and shoulders and neck aching from the anger in it. River sat still, and watched her.

"Just because you give someone something beautiful," Donna said, words tumbling one over the other, "It doesn't mean you can just take it away again when you feel like iy. When you feel like it's for their _own good_." Her breath caught. There was something harsh and thick in her throat. "Once it's _given_, that beautiful thing, it's theirs, all right? Even it's dangerous, or embarrassing, or likely to blow their bloody brains out, it's _no longer your responsibility._ Do you hear me?"

"Oh," River whispered, while tears streaked Donna's face. "I wish _he_ could."

Donna glared, bright and furious. "I don't want to talk about the Doctor," she said. "I am going to kiss you now."

* * *

><p>Donna had not expected fierceness. Oh, <em>River<em> was fierce. Donna had seen that in the library, in her laughter and all the fears that had been kept under control through a gleeful, familiar desire to learn, to _see what happened next._ But Donna Noble had not expected the bright, gorgeous _want_ of holding that woman, meeting her gasp for gasp and touch for touch.

She tasted sweet, in that dingy old Chiswick park. Her mouth was hot and clever and utterly giving, that made Donna slide her hands into the tangled mass of River's hair, taking a fistful of it hard enough for Donna to feel River's shaking groan deep beneath her own skin. They kissed, and held, and claimed, and Donna wasn't sure which of them managed to tap out coordinates on River's wrist, but _somewhere_, there was a bed, River falling backwards onto it with a laugh, while Donna reached forward, hands hooking in River's belt, and pulled her close again.

"And you were nervous about this?" River managed, shivering as Donna's hands slipped beneath her shirt. "I don't see _why._" She arched her back, grinning, and Donna looked down at her with a quizzical tilt to her head, even while she let her hands stroke slowly across River's body.

"You," she said, "Are going to be a talker, aren't you? Should have known."

"And you're _not_, darling?" River smiled lazily, reaching up to run the edge of her tongue across Donna's lower lip; down, after, to the pulse at the base of her throat.

"Look, there's a time and a _place_, isn't there?" Donna laughed, breathless and stunned, letting her head fall back for just a brief moment before turning back to the business of finding trouser buttons and hidden zips and the tiny weapons that River habitually hid about herself. "And right now I'm concentrating on something _else._"

Afterwards, River would never be able to think of the word _concentrate_ without feeling Donna's hands, one hard on her belly and the other slow and deep inside her, stretching her slowly, until, finger by finger, there was nothing left and she could just _clench_, wet and gasping, the air thick with sex and her own voice gone ragged, and she reached with surprised, shaking hands up to kiss and taste in turn.

Later, curled in that same bed on a planet neither of the two could name, River warm against her back, Donna smiled.

"You," she said in tones of wonder, "_Scream._"

* * *

><p><em>Epilogue<em>

Snow, again. The plains and sculptures of the Ood-Sphere caught the wind and blew it in Donna's face—but even with eyes slitted closed, she could see it.

Out of all the memories, TARDIS blue felt the richest in her mind. Even when it had been taken from her, she had still caught traces of it in her grandfather's sky; or just behind her left shoulder, if she'd been thinking of something else. A tug, a pinprick yearning had stayed with Donna all this time, and seeing the TARDIS now was enough to make her star, jaw slack, her hand clenching in River's warm, solid one.

"He doesn't know I'm here?"

"Oh, _she_ does, of course. But perhaps she won't tell him." River's smile was sweet, and almost gleeful.

"Who?"

The other woman kissed her cheek. "You _know_, darling. She's right there." Slowly, River lifted their joined hands, laying them against warm, painted wood.

"You called?" A tousled head stuck around the door. "Honestly, River. Leaving me messages that turn up inside all my shirts is a bit perverse. I'm all over ink. And _not_ your chauffeur—no, not_good,RiverSongwhatareyou__**doing**__?_"

"Hello, sweetie."

Donna squinted, trying to see past the flailing and the length of this man, all suspenders and over-tucked shirt and a bow tie that belonged on the sorts of clowns that sat and stared in her mother's favourite antique shops. "Wait," she breathed, horror dawning. "_No._"

"Yes," said River.

"But, River…that _face._" Donna stepped forward, TARDIS doors gently bumping against her back as she passed through into the vast, changed space. The man stepped back, eyes wide and hands twisting together. "You have a _face on your face_," she accused. "When did you go around getting that done? And a bow tie? Seriously?"

"Yes, Donna, of course it's me!" The Doctor said, stepping back sharply as Donna's hand hit him square in the chest. "And bow-ties are cool. You should know that. Ow!" He winced as she tweaked one suspender. "You should know that, but you shouldn't know—"

"—what, anything?"

The Doctor shifted from foot to foot, paler and more fidgety than Donna ever remembered. "Well, yes. What's happening right now should not be, in s long sort of very short…_possible._ And that hurts. Truly, it does. You have no idea, Donna, how much it hurts to say that, except that you might, because you've seen a bit too much of me—"

"—oh, mate, I have seen _way_ too much of you."

"But you shouldn't be seeing me _now._ There were safeguards!"

"Don't," River murmured as the TARDIS doors clicked closed, making them both jump, "Talk to me about safeguards, my love. Haven't you worked this one out yet?"

The Doctor paused, eying the two women. He stepped around them; a slow, careful circle that Donna tried to follow until she grew dizzy, while River merely smiled. He reached out, touched River's cheek, and Donna's hair—pulling a few strands away with his new, long fingers.

"Oi!"

"Hush." Frowning, he rubbed the strands between his palms, like a boy who had just read about friction trying to build a campfire in his backyard out of nothing. When he looked up, his eyes were fixed on River. And he smiled. Donna did not know this smile. It was sweeter and stranger than anything that had crossed her Doctor's face, and the man's eyes were suspiciously bright.

"Oh," he said. "You _clever thing._"

And then Donna felt strong, gangling arms sweep her up into a hug. "Look at _you_," he murmured. "You're back. You're brilliant. You're _magnificent_. And I had nothing to do with it. I could bloody kiss you!"

"_You'd better not!"_

"…except I'd better not. Yes. Weird. That's still _definitely_ weird. Kissing. Not that River would mind, on principle."

From her place crushed into the Doctor's bony, tweed shoulder, Donna could hear that River was laughing.

"Sweetie," she said. "I am _never_ the one who minds."

"I would!" Donna pulled back to grin at him. "_Look_ at you. You're ridiculous, you are." Reaching up, she caught a tear with the side of her thumb.

He sniffed. "I'm always at my best when I'm ridiculous."

"This," River said, stepping up and sliding herself behind their still loosely joined arms, "Is true." She smirked from their midst, back against the Doctor's chest, her hair almost obscuring his view as she brushed her lips against Donna's.

But not quite.


	4. Chapter 4

**4: Ephemera. Epilogue?**

* * *

><p>A vignette in this universe that I wrote around Christmas last year. More may follow, but only sometimes, since I do think that Donna and River's story is done, at least so far as I can tell it.<p>

* * *

><p>The Doctor and Donna. In the TARDIS.<p>

This Doctor. _That _Donna, all riot-words and sly smiles, her old copy of _Body in the Library _clutched in one hand. "So, you swapped me out for a younger ginger—"

"Now," he spluttered. "Now _that's _not—"

"_Another _ginger, then. The ginger married—"

"—of course she married. Fairy-tale girl, Amelia Pond. It was a _great_ wedding. You'd have had a laugh."

Donna Noble shifted, perching on the TARDIS console in a way that, somehow, reminded the Doctor both of River and, eerily, his younger self. A little too much strangeness in either picture, even for him. "You know, Doctor," she said, "I'm a bit sick of weddings."

"_You_?"

Donna rolled her eyes. "No. Henry the flipping-eighth. _Obviously_ me. And who's fault is that?"

"River's, probably."

"_y—_oh, yes. Probably. Her, too."

"Anything that doesn't involve a pyramid isn't worth the effort, for her," he mused, grinning at Donna's brief, confused look and feeling a sneaky sort of joy that River Song had yet to tell his best mate _quite _everything. Donna caught the look—always more perceptive than she knew, that woman—and shook her head, her caught-back hair flicking a monitor.

They were sitting there, the pair of them, looking into each other's eyes and thinking about the same woman. There were _weirder _things than space. Donna cleared her throat. "So, she married a longer, skinnier bloke than you, even, who is _also_ a Roman, maybe plastic, and together they...made River?"

He was blushing. Donna looked. She blinked hard, to check. Looked again, and he was still there. His long, bony hands all twisting together when he wasn't plucking at his lapel or touching that unforgivable bow-tie or pushing his hair off his too-large face. His whole _body _blushed.

"Well, yes," he said. "Weddings have...um...wedding _nights. _But they had help. See. It was Sexy."

"_Did you **look?**_—"

"—no! I mean—oh, you should _know _what I mean. You've felt her. You know _River_." His hand had shifted to the TARDIS's near-wall, splaying there for a moment. "Amy, Rory, the TARDIS."

Donna looked at the Doctor's far-off, too-close face, and sighed. "And she saved me," she said.

"Yes. Yes, she did."

"And do you _really_ think," asked Donna Noble, eyebrow cocked and eyes serious above her smile, "That we can't do a better job of saving _her_, between us?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but she covered it quickly, her hands surer and stronger than when he had known her, but still brash and bold and, gloriously, herself.

"_I _think," she said, "We should at least try."


End file.
